business partnership
by crawfy
Summary: Short story of a man who learned what happens to people who cannot repay their debt to Teiai even if they would work their whole life.


Yasue was looking around with a feeling of surrealness: he still had those moments when he couldn't believe that a young, promising scientist ended up playing chinchiro at the Teiai underground facility. He had such great plans: his research goal seemed to be within a year from completion, when he lost funding. He thought that one little loan would solve the problem, but it turned out to be a grave mistake. He thought that the artificial intelligence he was working on could help him get out of debt, but it always lacked processing power - maybe the 80s technology was just too primitive for his ideas. Then, as a last attempt, he used it to predict results of a rigged roulette game. This turned out to be an even bigger mistake and he ended up here. At first he vowed to never gamble again, but his foreman persuaded him that this is his only chance to gain enough money to go outside - people with lifelong debts couldn't' get a furlough. It was good advice: by using statistics to detect players using loaded dice he earned in 2 years enough money to reduce his debt from 97 years of work to just 93...

He started to play even more when he heard a terrible rumor: people with lifelong debts sometimes went missing, in whole groups. His co-workers speculated about illegal medical experiments, shooting practice on living targets for Yakuza etc. Hell within hell. Yasue was more optimistic: those could just be fake rumors, or group suicides by people who lost all hope. He pondered a bit how optimistic it really was, when he received a message that a black suit wants to meet him. He didn't talk to any Teiai official since he got here, so this was something extraordinary:

Hello, Mr. Yasue, do you want a beer?

of course he wanted a beer, because he saved every... ok, some of the Perica to get out of here. But his curiosity was even thirstier:

What do you want from me? Why are you here?

Relax, we found a way for you to repay your debt faster by using your scientific skills. This is a great day for you, cheers!

Yasue couldn't believe his luck and started drinking, speechless. Then he asked:

What am i supposed to do?

A partner company from across the ocean needs workers. They are working on something from your field.

But what exactly?

You will get all the details when you get there. Prepare for the trip…

Yasue sensed two people getting closer behind him. He tried to stand up, but suddenly felt very dizzy and lost conciousness. His last thought was: they added sleep pills – I should have known there is no such thing as a free beer down here.

The sleep seemed very short. Yasue wasn't restrained in any way and was laying on a bed. He heard a voice:

Hello, test subject number... bzzz... 55

(oh crap, the rumors about medical experiments were real - thought yasue)

This is Cave Johnson here. This is a prerecorded message for all personnel supposed to work on AI. The research is going so well (even too well) that it turned out we don't need more of you. However, we always welcome new test subjects. Don't worry nobody has ever... err, nobody has ever become bored on our test tracks. Insane, yes, but not bored. Proceed to the gate in order to receive your equipment and further instructions.

This was a very long day for Yasue.

After finally escaping from the test tracks he realized that the only option to hide from the dwindling numbers of human guards and more and more fearsome robotic guards was to hibernate and wait this craziness out. Besides, he always wanted to know how it will be in the future.

A voice with a British accent woke him:

Hello, are you awake? And alive? Well, technically you have to be alive to be awake but believe me: we have handled pretty nasty cases here. So please raise your hand if you are awake and tell me if you are alive. If you are not awake but can speak, raise both hands. If you are not alive but can raise a hand, please don't. Wait, i messed this up, let me start again...

Yasue stared in astonishment at the personality core. Since he read Astroboy as a kid he believed that robots could be sentient. But he has never thought they could be so dumb...

After outsmarting Wheatley (his experience in AI finally paid up) and putting him to sleep, Yasue searched for the old test tracks from the 80s. He was not driven by nostalgia (certainly not for some of the most gruesome tracks that required reflex for unknown reason), but he was looking for something that was giving him hope during all those tests. He didn't remember any long flight to USA or any transport to the Aperture Science facility and he doubted that the sedative would work for so long. Moreover, he learned from the prerecorded messages that Hyodou and Johnson were sort of business partners: Johnson got test subjects from Teiai, and Hyodou got latest Aperture innovations and know-how about large underground facilties. So maybe, just maybe... finally he found it in one of the old flooded chambers: a portal from Aperture to Teiai! After long hibernation he thought that 93 years may have already passed and he could walk out as a free man (all exits from Aperture were still heavily guarded by turrets).

When Yasue passed through the portal, he realized it was a lot, lot more than 93 years: the civilization he met there worshipped him like a hero, because he stopped the flood cramping Teiai living space for centuries. It was still a dictatorship, but Hyodou the 43rd was generous enough to recognize that his debt was finally repaid. But there was no exit: those people forgot what it was to live on a surface. Yasue decided he will reclaim the surface for people – and that's when he found a strange spiral drill...


End file.
